The Opelousas courier., 1887-09-24
A DYING CUSTOM.
Louisiana the Only State Where
Duels are Frequent.
Some Duelling Stories--The Pts
toll as a Peace-Maker.

I . III CAS
We clip the following from thu
Atlanta Constitution: "Within thu
last ten years there have not been tel
duels fought in Georgia." said a promi
nent lawyer. "Before the war duels
were more common, and yet they rarely
ended fatally. The politicians INDUCED
in them mostly, but once in awhile
| gentlemen in private life took theil
stations ON the field. Political duels
were seldom bloody. But whenever
private gentlemen, who did not care tc
let the general public into the nature OF
their quarrel, went out to fight, it was
generally the case that somebody was
left behind, and this was true to a great
extent of duels now between private
gentlemen.
"The late Gen. Toombs sought to le-
galize duelling, to incorporate it into the
present state constitution. He prepared
a section upon the subject, carefully
worded it and i~ngeniously argued its
adoption, but the convention refused to
indorse it. Not content with treating
the generals pet scheme in the discourte-
Gus name it did, the convention went
further and adopted a section that made
duelling illegal and prescribed some very
heavy penalties for its violation.
zone of the saddest duels eve fought
in the south came off at the famous bar
in the Savannah river a few miles below
Augusta, known as "Sand Bar Ferry"
The actual meeting took place on the
soil of South Carolina, but the combat
ants were two popular Augusta gentle
men. What it was that caused lilly
and Radcliffe to meet on the field of
honor no one knew exactly. 1t was ru-
mored that one had been rude to the
iancee of the other and that the
failure to apologize led to the
fatal meeting. Whatever was the
cause it was trifing compared to the re-
suit, for as gallant and as handsome a
man as ever trod the ball room floor
dyed with his life blood the sandy soil
of the river shore. lilly was a fine
looking, wcll-built Irishman, and his
connections were said to have been close
with the head of a titled family who
called him cousin. An expert marks
man, he could crack the bottom of a
champagne bottle as it lay with its neck
on the table, sending the
pistol ball through the mouth without
breaking the neck. He presented a
strong contrast to the delicate looking
Radcliffe, who seemed to be consump-
tive, whose pallid complexion and feeble
frame indicated that death by natural
was not very far away, and YET
Radcliffe killed lilly that~morning
at the ferry, the e--rey.o shot falling
before the accidental aim of an indiffer-
emit marksman. This was bad enough
but only half had been completed. Rad
cliffe wandered westward and sougbt for
getfulness and oblivion in the widest
and the most reckless dissipa-
ton. But not ever that could blast out
The handsome figure of the gallant Irish
man as it appeared in the early dawn of
hat eventful morning when the two
each other in death combat; and
Radcliffe, alone in a foreign state, with
'ut friends, blew his brains out with a
pistol.
Louisiana is, perhaps, the worst state
n the union for duelling. The custom
$ more generally kept up there now than
anywhere else in the United States be-
of the large French element. But
t is rapidly becoming obsolete there.
The duel with sabres or swordsis giving
way almost entirely to duels with pis-
OILS, and the use of the pistol is death to
he practice"
ssWhy2n
stBecause the duel with a sword is
really an affair of skill, of science; it is
Tot only an exhibition of courage, but it
s also a contest of skill, of strength,
md of endurance. It is seldom fatal.
a duel with a pistols about as much
combat where chances altogether rule
IS the much-talked-of duel with pills,
where one pill was loaded with poison,
he other free, both exactly alike, and
he contest nothing more or less than a
election. With pistols there is no telling
Who will be the unlucky man; the most
xpert shots are killed at the first fire by
almost entirely ignorant of the
lse of the weapon. It is nothing more
rlcss than luck"
I'm Insect Mimic.
Mature ~ -, c~&sz9o =. -